Daverz;638292 Wrote: > I've think you've written a sort of "Pilgrim's Progress" for audiophiles > there, TheLastMan. Yes, sorry about that - I felt the need to share!
I really think that listening to new equipment blind is an asbolute necessity if you want to avoid being disappointed once you get equipment home. I found through painful experience that prejudice founded on convincing marketing or magazine reviews only fools the brain for a couple of days. Once the marketing hype is forgotten, the magazine dumped in the recycling bin and the blue power cable hidden behind the hi-fi cabinet, your critical faculties take over and you start to hear the music as it really sounds. To drag out the religious analogy, Alan Sircom's trick on me was an epiphany, a humbling "Road to Damascus" moment. Before that point I really did believe LP sounded better than CD. But once he had tricked me so brilliantly I could no longer kid myself. The scales fell from my ears, CD was quite obviously better in almost every respect than LP. After that point I rarely bought an LP unless it was for reasons other than sound quality (Roger Dean gatefold artwork for instance). I still listen to my large existing LP collection, and still enjoy it. I spent £2k on the Linn Sondek with Ekos arm fully aware that although it sounded a lot better than my Rega Planar 3, it did not sound any better than my £200 Arcam Alpha CD player. Different, and "nice", but not better in any objective way. 9 times out of 10 I would prefer music on CD rather than LP if I were honest with myself. Certainly for acoustic / classical music there is no question that digital was the better medium. It also reinforced to me that music is not about "transient speed", "bass slam" or "soundstage width and depth" it is about whether the instruments sound "real", the composer's intention, the conductor's interpretation, the player's technique, an instrument's timbre, the engineer's cleverness, the group's ensemble, the poetry of the lyrics, the emotions conveyed etc. The hi-fi that best conveys these "facts" via *your* ears to *your* brain is the one that is doing the job best. No magazine review or blog posting can tell you that. -- TheLastMan Matt http://www.last.fm/user/MJL-UK *SqueezeBoxes:* SB Duet (Controller + two receivers) *Server:* Synology DS107+ NAS (with firmware 2.3-1157) running Squeezebox Server 7.5.3 on Synology Package Manager *Network:* Netgear DG834GT ADSL modem/router, 2 x Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 as access points *Livingroom:* Receiver into Naim 42/110 amp, B&W CM2 speakers *Kitchen:* Receiver into Denon DM37 mini-system, B&W 686 speakers *Study:* Linn LP12, Naim 72/Hi-cap/Headline. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TheLastMan's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=16021 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=88345
_______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
